Rita's Nightmare
by Bloodlustful
Summary: Although life is looking up for Fagin and his dogs as they earn enough money to move to an apartment and one in a building near the house where Jenny, Oliver, Winston and Georgette live, no less! , what's heaven in real life will prove to be hell in dreamland. At least in Rita's case, as she finds out the hard way at nighttime. This story takes place after the movie.


Hi, everyone! I remember how one of the Oliver And Company fics on this site involved Oliver having a nightmare and Dodger comforting him. I liked that fic a lot and also favorited it. So I thought I'd make an Oliver And Company fanfic focused around a nightmare for my favorite of Fagin's dogs. Namely, the bodacious and beautiful Rita! In this fic, she is sound asleep at night, but she is having dreams which are anything but sweet. Just how awful are they? Read on and find out, if you dare! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHA!

THINGS TO NOTE:

This was inspired by that part of the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance in which the heroes travel to Mephisto's Realm to try and save Nightcrawler and Jean Grey, but can only save one while the other perishes, as well as that series of horror flicks "A Nightmare On Elm Street 1-7". Gotta love Freddy Krueger.

I own none of the characters. They all belong to Oliver And Company. With the exception of The Devil, who obviously belongs to the Holy Bible.

Rita's Nightmare

In the real world, things were going quite nicely for Rita and the rest of Fagin's dogs, along with Fagin himself, something they certainly weren't displeased about. After all, they no longer needed to live in a barge. Fagin had entered a contest to try and make it so they could earn enough money to live in a decent apartment, and one in a building located right next to Jenny's house, since Oliver was such good friends with Fagin's dogs, and by both talent and luck, he'd managed to edge out the other contestants. So he won the prize money, though he did all he was able to do to be humble and modest about it, and he was able to buy the apartment in question. Soon thereafter, he and his dogs moved in, and after making sure they had all they'd needed to sustain themselves and their living conditions, they paid a visit to Jenny's house, which was an absolutely wonderful surprise for Jenny, Winston, Georgette and, of course, Oliver, all four of whom were beyond elated to see them.

After everything was explained, Jenny invited them to say at her house for a night and that she would throw a party to celebrate their new life, and they accepted it happily. But once the wonderful night and party was over, and everyone had gone to bed(Winston selected where Fagin and his dogs would be sleeping, since this wasn't their normal home and they needed a way to adjust so they could sleep just as cozily as Oliver, Georgette, Jenny and Winston), all of the happiness and cheer turned to dark terror and literally hellish fright. At least for Rita, albeit not in the real world, but in dreamland. Here, I'll be more exact.

No sooner had she fallen asleep than did Rita see that she was not in Jenny's mansion any longer. In fact, she was in hell. LITERALLY! She quickly came to realize this. After all, she was far from stupid, and she knew hell when she saw it. Sure enough, fire and brimstone were pretty much all over the place, and it was surprising that her paws were not burned horribly. Still, it of course felt like a hothouse, and there were demons, ghouls, goblins, zombies, specters, hell bats, hellhounds and all sorts of other demonic, unholy, hellspawn abominations everywhere. There of course were also many tortured souls swirling around and screaming, and there were quite a few pentagrams with flaming candles, altars which held devil bibles and sinister, dark looking castles and structures galore. It looked like the perfect vision of the Christian hell, with no holds barred evil all around and about it.

"Oh, my God…" Rita gasped. "I'm in hell. But why? How did I get here?" "It matters not in the long run, Rita." she heard a deep, thundering, booming, cruel, monstrous voice which was unmistakably that of Lucifer, also referred to with names like Satan and The Devil himself. "It's you…" Rita gaped, realizing who'd said that on the spot. "It's me, indeed, bitch." Satan replied. "Old Nick. Lucifer. The Prince Of Lies. The Fallen Angel. The Beast. The Devil. But you can just call me Satan, since I'm in the mood for that this time, and my moods for what I'd like to be called very often change from victim to victim. Anyway, I suppose you're wondering why you're here, and what I want with you."

"Yeah, but I'm also wondering how the fuck I get hearts out of here!" Rita snarled. "You took me in here against my will, and my friends could be worried sick about me!" "Ah, but you aren't the only one who was taken in here unwillingly!" Satan replied. He would then make it so two giant red skulls appeared and opened their mouths, with flame bars in the front of them, and behind those flame bars, in each skull, was one of each of her two closest friends. To be exact, in the mouth and behind the fire bars of the skull on the left was her love and mate, Dodger, and in the mouth and behind the fire bars of the skull on the right was her adorable kitten pal, Oliver! In the instant she saw this, Rita exclaimed: "Dodger! Oliver!" She then looked to where she could tell Satan was despite how he was keeping himself invisible, and growled: "Fiend! Why did you do this to us?" "The answer is quite simple, really." Satan replied as he made himself visible.

He then told Rita: "Normally, I just torture my sinner victims down here in hell with me, as they are the damned souls which are forever mine. But now and then, I get tired of the same old evil and pain infliction. And that's when I think of a new brand of cruelty to concoct. In this case, here is how this works." He threw her a trident and then said: "With this trident only can you free your friends from those skulls. The idea is that you place the trident in the ground in front of the skull prison and its bars will disappear, making it so its captive is capable of escaping." Then Rita, picking up the trident, said: "Sounds simple enough, but you're The Devil, and thus not to be trusted. How do I know there is not a catch to this?" "You don't." Satan replied. "But you would not just leave your friends trapped, would you?" "No, of course not." Rita thought to herself. "As much as I may be right this isn't as simple as it seems, I can't leave Dodger and Oliver trapped in those horrid things. I've got to free them."

So she ran over to where Dodger was contained, intending to free him first, and then free Oliver as he got out, but she quickly learned it would not be that easy. Far from it. For just as she reached his skull and was about to put the trident into the ground in front of his skull prison to free him, Dodger yelped: "Rita, no! Please do not put that trident in the ground! If the fire bars holding me in here are made to disappear, Oliver's skull prison will explode with flame and fire on the inside and char him to a pile of ash! Do not condemn me to a lifetime of guilt! Please, if you know of mercy, save him! I've lived longer than he has! He's still a kitten with his entire life ahead of him! Don't cut it short!" Thinking this meant that she would have to save Oliver first and then save Dodger if she wanted both to live, she ran to Oliver's skull prison, but as soon as she reached it, Oliver cried out: "Rita, I beg of you, don't come any closer! Place that trident in the ground and make the flame bars vanish, and Dodger's skull prison will spill hot molten lava on him from all directions! I won't be the reason for his death! I won't! He's a good guy and does not deserve to perish! And he's your love, too! You've known him longer than me! Please spare him and let me take the fall!"

"Ah, so now you see what I have not yet mentioned to you!" Satan said to Rita. "If you save Dodger, Oliver dies. If you save Oliver, Dodger dies. So, what do you believe will be the lesser of two evils? Who will you save? The mutt or the kitten? And don't think you can try to think up a third option or any of that other shit! You're trapped here and you can only pick one or the other. No alternatives. And no tricks. Even if you tried to save one after freeing the other, he who you did not choose would die well before you could reach his skull in time. So tell me, bitch, who shall it be?" Thus, Rita now realized she'd been presented with what many would refer to as being the sadistic choice. Or, to put in another way, the choice from hell. Literally, in this case. She was horrifically torn and conflicted, not to mention shocked and horrified at the all too sudden and awful realization.

"Better make your choice before I fucking make it for you!" said Satan to Rita. "And I'm going to count to ten before I decide to kill them both at once anyway!" Hearing this made it so Rita was even more torn, tense and agonized in the soul, and kept moving her head back and forth, back and forth, clearly unable to choose, as she did not want either to die, and she knew all too well that, whatever she chose, a tragedy would strike and a life would be lost. "Dear lord…it was planned from the get-go, wasn't it?!" Rita snapped. "You designed these prisons so that at the instant one of them is opened, the other one burns the one still imprisoned to death in some horrible way!" "Indeed! And I am perfectly capable of both thinking this up and making it so! I am The Devil, after all!" Satan gloated callously and sadistically. "Now, as I said, I'm going to count to ten before I just kill them both and their deaths can both be on your conscious and soul for all time! One, two…" Rita now tensed up worse than ever, the idea of letting one of them die tearing her apart from the inside, and her heart was pounding with the strain of how torn she was between these two horrendous evils she did not want to commit even ONE of, but was being full damn well forced to commit one of to prevent another.

"There has to be another way…" she thought to herself desperately. But the situation then went from bad to worse. Satan said: "…TEN! That does it, madame mutt! You had your chance! They both die!" "NO!" Rita shouted, selflessly plunging the trident into the ground in front of the skull holding Oliver, knowing it would mean Dodger's death, which ripped at her and hurt her in the worst way, but she could not ignore Oliver still had his entire life ahead of him, and she could not selfishly cut that life short by saving Dodger, even though he was the one she of course both had known longer and loved and vice versa. She hated knowing how her mate would perish, but it was either that or the death of an innocent, full of life kitten like Oliver. So she did what she felt was the closest thing to a good choice she could do, and even then, it was far from that. Seeing her do this and also seeing the flame bars on Oliver's skull prison disappear, Satan would say: "Well, hold up here! You made your choice after all! Very well, you have chosen! I spare Oliver's life…"

He made Oliver be flung out at Rita, then after he landed in front of her, he made lava come out from all directions in Dodger's skull prison and Dodger was burned to nothing in an insignificant amount of seconds. "Dodger, no! NO! NO!" Oliver cried out. Then, as Satan's evil laugh was followed by the words: "Now you know what it is like to lose a loved one for the sake of a little one! Doesn't it hurt? Isn't it the ultimate loss? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Oliver turned to Rita and cried: "Why, Rita? I know you were trapped, but why couldn't you have let me be the one to die? Dodger was my friend AND your love! Even given how I'm just a kitten, you should have chosen him to live! Now I have to live the rest of my life, which is a long time, knowing I was the reason Dodger lost his life! I'll never be the same because of you. It may have been a tight spot, and you might have had the best of intentions in mind even as you wished you could save us both, but I'll still never be the same thanks to what you just did. I'm sorry, Rita, but as much as it pains me to say this…I hate your guts. And I will never stop hating you. I don't want to hate you, nor did I ever think I would, but now, I have to. Curse the day that I met you."

He wept bitterly, and Rita hung her head, growing furious when she heard Satan say: "So it would appear the child is unappreciative and would have preferred you end his life instead of stain it with guilt! Did you make the right choice after all, bitch? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And now you are without a love or a friend!" "BASTARD! You tricked me!" Rita yowled, but then she suddenly felt a reality warp which got her right back to where she'd been before she'd made the choice, with Dodger and Oliver both alive, and she felt herself being controlled by her tormenter this time. "What the?!" exclaimed Rita, and she was unable to stop Satan from forcing her to plunge the trident into the ground in front of Dodger's prison skull this time. "Let's see the way it goes down when you make the alternative choice, shall we?" Satan smiled evilly. "Let go of me, you monster!" Rita yelled, but then she saw the flame bars on Dodger's skull prison fully vanish, and Dodger was hurled into her by Satan, them both falling over and looking up in time to see Oliver be incinerated completely by flames, fire and blazes. He died and was ashes so, so quickly, the poor kitten didn't even have time to scream.

As soon as they saw this, Dodger shouted: "No! Oliver!" He turned to Rita and said to her: "Oh, Rita, why? Why did you let that poor kitten die? I would have happily sacrificed my life for his! Yes, I am your love, and yes, you have known me longer than him, and yes, he of course would have been sad for me and grieved with guilt, but he still was a little kitten who should have been allowed to live, even if it meant I, an adult dog, would die! You let a kitten lose his life! I'm so sorry, Rita, but I can't forgive that at all! I cannot continue to love you, nor have any kind of relationship with you. I wish it were otherwise, but you are dead to me after what has just happened!" "I was forced by Satan to do it! He controlled me!" Rita protested. "Regardless, you still made a decision that, when it gets down to it, was selfish and even more evil than the still evil alternative! As such, you and I are fucking through! I do not like this and I wish I had another option, but I am left with none! Goodbye, Rita. From this point on, I will not ever be doing anything short of hating your goddamn guts! It tortures me inside to say this, but I am left with no choice at all! Why did you have to kill Oliver along with our relationship? I am now doomed to a life of guilt, while you are now a kitten murderer with no friends anymore, not even me, and Oliver is nothing but dead corpse ashes in hell, the last place he deserves! What the hell have you done, Rita? What the HELL have you DONE?!"

He walked away angrily, shedding tears for Oliver, and how he and Rita could never be together again, and Rita exploded at Satan: "Satan, you motherfucker, that tears it! Get right the fuck down here and fight! I am going to battle you, and I am either going to defeat you and see to it you are forced to fully reverse everything and free Oliver and Dodger, both of whom stay alive along with me as well as all three of us leaving this revolting place forever, or die trying!" "Only the latter can happen, Rita!" Satan told her as he appeared in front of her by teleportation. "But I want you to know this for a fact…I am not doing this to obey your pathetic, meaningless, petty and empty demands. I am doing it because I know it can provide me both an extra victim and a bit of extra amusement! Who knows? Maybe I'll warp the reality of this hell repeatedly so I can destroy all three of you at once, or do all of this all over again! But anything I say goes here of course goes, for this is my kingdom, and it is run by my rules!" "Not anymore, motherfucker!" let out Rita, but she suddenly saw, heard and felt the ground split from beneath her feet.

As it opened up, Satan cackled: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I would think not, you bitch! Looks like all your times of theft and sneakiness have finally caught up to you, yes? You'd thought your life would continue to be fruitful as long as you didn't get caught, but you've been out of the reach of fate and karma for far too long!" As Rita fell down towards the lava below, she let out a blood curdling scream and Satan continued to cackle villainously. Just then, Rita's scream continued, because at that moment, just as she, in her nightmare, hit the lava of hell, she woke up completely. So loud was her scream that everyone else in the mansion instantly came rushing into where she was, and Fagin was going: "Rita? Was that you screaming?" "What's the matter, Rita?" asked Georgette. "You sounded like you were having a heart attack!" "No…not a heart attack…" gasped Rita. "Oliver…Dodger…" "What? We're right here, Rita!" Dodger said as he and Oliver showed themselves. "OH, MY GOD! YOU'RE ALIVE!" Rita exclaimed. "Of course we're alive. Why wouldn't we be?" Oliver asked her.

"But what has you so spooked, Rita? This isn't like you." Jenny told her. "But…how is this…I was…hell…Satan…skull prisons…" Rita stammered, realizing increasingly she was in fact back in the land of the living, and none of her nightmare had happened. "Wait…" Tito said, catching on along with the others, though Einstein took a bit longer than everyone else. Then an instant later, Winston said: "You had a nightmare, didn't you, Rita?" "Yeah…" Rita realized in full at last, and she said: "So I'm not in hell…neither Oliver nor Dodger is dead…things are just as they were…" "Dead? Us?" asked Oliver. Dodger then said: "No way, no how!" "Seriously, Rita, we can assure you that everything from when you first entered 'hell' to the second before you woke up was all in your mind. Nothing more." Georgette assured her. "Thank God…" let out Rita before she threw herself around Oliver and Dodger, hugging them tight and unable to stop herself from shedding tears, one long tear out of each eye, though no more than that.

Although Oliver and Dodger were at first a bit surprised, they quickly understood Rita's reason for doing this, even though both knew along with Rita herself and everyone else in the room that she normally wouldn't. Oliver nuzzled against her while Dodger held her close to him with his right front paw and the latter would say: "Fear not, Rita. We're both just as alive as we were before." "Yes…you were never captured…I didn't have to choose between one of you to save and one to let die…even though I wanted to save you both…neither of you hate me or have been killed…I'm not falling into a lava pit crevice…" "Dear God, no!" Oliver exclaimed. "My God, is THAT what your nightmare was about?" Jenny gasped. "Hate admitting it, since it's so embarrassing and I hated it like I didn't think I could hate something, but yes. Right down to Old Nick…" Rita confirmed. "Uh, Old Nick?" asked a confused, puzzled Einstein.

"She means The Devil, you stupid dingbat!" Tito snapped at Einstein. "Old Nick is one of many names for The Devil." added Francis. "Sheesh, we gotta tell you everything?" asked an ever so snippy Georgette. "Now, now, no need for that." Winston spoke. "Yes, let's focus on the well being of Rita. She's done a lot for us and this is one of the very rare instances in which she needs consoling." Fagin added in. "So let's give it to her." Dodger spoke, and the others nodded. Rita couldn't believe she was crying even a little bit, or feeling as afraid, vulnerable and relieved, not to mention spooked and grateful for/close to her friends as she was now, but she couldn't at all deny either one, even if the former only was mild and came out in one long tear out of each of her eyes. It was a while before she was completely back to normal, but by the time she was, she not only thanked everyone for helping comfort her back to normal, she gave Oliver a lick and in the next instant did the same to Dodger before nuzzling him.

Dodger nuzzled back and the others looked on with a smile, deciding that they'd leave the two for a moment alone together. And Dodger and Rita were only too happy with that, and Rita in particular, since what, in dreamland, had been hell, was now, in reality, heaven.

THE END

So, what did you think, guys? Especially you Rita fans? Please rate and review, everyone!


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